Marvel HeroClix

[No Such Agency]

Has anyone bought any of the new Marvel HeroClix figures from Wizkids? I was wondering about the prospects for stripping and repainting these figs. Are they polystyrene or some other weird plastic? I never bought any of the regular Mage Knight, only Mage Knight Metal, so I have no idea what the quality of the sculpts/castings is, though obviously the factory paint looks pretty dreadful.

Of course, there\'s also the problem that, as I understand it, these figures are packaged randomly in the booster packs, so you pays your money and takes your chances... or you hit eBay to bid on the characters you want...

 

[Errex]

Heroclix

The material used in the Heroclix figures is some kind of rubber. In fact, the figure itself often is more flexible than the paint they apply, so, it is not uncommon to have some cracks over the paint when you turn the combat-dial. Also, sometimes the paint application is too thick, wich in turn hides some detail.

The sculpts are fairly good, but are inconsistent from character to character.

There are some mold lines, but nothing serious. I myself was wondering about how to remove the paint from them, but might wait to have some duplicates before trying some of the methods commonly used with my other minis.

Hope that helps.:bouncy:

 

[Dragon Forge Design]

Ive been stripping them lately useing the Windsor Newton Brush cleaner and restorer. It strips the paint right off them in a coupple of hours.

 

[Errex]

Originally posted by Dragon Forge Design
Ive been stripping them lately useing the Windsor Newton Brush cleaner and restorer. It strips the paint right off them in a coupple of hours.

I\'d like to know how you go about it.

Do you \"unglue\" the figure from the base?, If not, How do you keep the lettering on the dial from dissolving?.

This W&N stuff, Is akin to turpentine or regular paint remover?

 

[No Such Agency]

Thank you Errex, DFD.

This is good... I know there\'s a Windsor & Newton product stand at my local art store. They\'ll probably have the brush cleaner. And since I don\'t play the game, I don\'t really care about the lettering on the base, it\'ll get puttied over anyway!

This rubber figure thing has me a little worried, I\'ve found that paints often don\'t stick too well to \"rubbery\" plastics, and it\'s a pain to clean up the castings since you can\'t really file or sand the stuff...

I guess I\'ll just have to try. Now what are the odds that my local overwhelmingly-GW shop will carry this line...? ;-)

 

[Errex]

Well, in my experience with other plastic figs, if you prime and paint them with GW stuff, you should have no problem. I\'ve been using Citadel\'s smelly primer and paints to restore some vintage SW figures and they look as good as new, and the paint holds up pretty well.

 

[schmidtjo]

I have the batman HeroClix and it seems alot less rubbery than the Mageknigt figs do...

 

[Bent Brush]

Stripping the Hero Naked

The miniatures are made from RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanizing Rubber) This stuff can be dropped in to good old acetone for just a couple minutes. Then a soft bristled tooth brush will remove the paint.

This will not harm the model.

 

[Errex]

Thanks for the acetone tip; thing is, acetone will destroy the combat dial, so, it is not an option if you are still planning on playing the game.

 

[Errex]

So...

I just finished my first Heroclix repaint, and have reached the following conclusion:

It is just not worth the effort. If you paint over the original paintjob, there is too much detail loss, even with thinned paint.

If, on the other hand, you strip the paint from your figure, you still have to deal with an enormous amount of work trying to remove mold lines and filling gaps.

So, you get stuck with a sucky miniature, no matter how good your paint job is.

Now, don\'t get me wrong. I love the concept and think that Heroclix is a fun collectible game, I\'ll just wait for the metal ones, if any, to get my painting/modelling fix.

 

[Bent Brush]

The Hero Clix Metal

I highly doubt there will be metal versions of these models. After all the Mage Knight Metals were so poorly accepted that they are no longer producing them.

As for the Dial I generaly remove the model from the dial before I paint it. I apologies if you lost a dial.

 

[Errex]

So, I won\'t be holding my breath for metal superhero figures then. Just out of curiosity, How do you remove the figure from the dials?, I totalled one dial, but it\'s no biggie, since it was a duplicate I got in a booster.

 

[Bent Brush]

Dial Removal is the easy part.

The dial is two parts, pop these apart with out breaking them.

Now use an X-acto / hobby knife to gently shave the feet off the base. This has to be done carefuly so as to not damage the base or the model.

These models are held on by the equivelent of super glue and can be shaved off with little effort.

By the way nice job on the daredevil.

As for Superhero Miniatures try http://www.superfigs.net/. They have about 40 Super Figs.

 

[Errex]

Once more, into the breach...

One would have thought that after my first attempt at re-painting this monstrosities, I\'d have learned a lesson, but nooo..., I\'d got to try it one more time, now removing the fig before unpainting as you suggested.

Thing is, altough the figure itself lacks the smoothness of pewter, now that I\'m almost done with it, no way I\'m going to glue it back on the crappy plastic dial.

I suppose the real lesson here is: No matter the painting standard you are at, Wizkids\'s is much worse, so, any effort you put at customizing your Heroclix, will be an improvement over the \"out of the box\" look.

 

[The Raging Gaijin]

Ooooh, HeroClix!

Long time listener, first time caller!
Saw the HeroClix and recently painted up some for a commission, and one of my own. I was wondering about a couple of things:

How long do you keep the minis in Acetone to strip the paint?

Saw the Daredevil repaint and it\'s awesome! The comment on the 3 colors prolly doesn\'t follow comics enough, neh? Super job, Errex.

Look forward to hearing replies!

 

[Errex]

Thanks for your comments, RG. Indeed, when it comes to superheros, it is kinda restricting the limited palette that comics use.

Regarding acetone use, I have sort of mixed feelings about it. The paint begins to soften quite quickly with just about 3-4 minute dips, but it really doesn\'t come off completely, as some brushing and picking with a pin are needed.

Something funny, though, is that while the rubber the figures are made of doesn\'t dissolve, it got a bit more \"bendy\" and elastic (without any detail loss, mind you). This could present some problems at the paint-picking step, because I pulled at a mold line and ripped off a thin layer of the rubber, kinda like if my Elektra had a bad case of road rash (nothing that could not be fixed by several coats of paint and sealers, I hope). Anyway I expect to post the finished mini sometime this week.

 

[Bent Brush]

Originally posted by The Raging Gaijin

How long do you keep the minis in Acetone to strip the paint?

Depending on the model, not more than 10 minutes.

I have had luck striping after only 60 seconds. Some of the painters for Wizkids pile it on more than do others.

As for the bendy thing. Leave the model in the sun for the afternoon, (say 4 hours) that generaly will do the trick.

Also REMOVE the dial. See previous posts.

 

[Thri-Keen Priest]

Marvel Metal

I checked out these plastic minis, but wasn\'t very impressed. Besides, plastic just doesn\'t have the right \"heft\" to it. Plastic skeletons, *maybe*. I\'ve been looking high and low for some metal figs of Marvel heroes; anybody know of some? (New or old?) In the meantime, I\'m converting a model of Wolverine, using an old Chaos Thug as little more than a \"dolly\" for the new piece. Will post photos of it once complete...


TKP